ISE in the News

A new initiative to share information on cyber threats between businesses and government is to be launched. It will include experts from government communications body GCHQ, MI5, police and business and aims to better co-ordinate responses to the threats. There will be a secure web-portal to allow access to shared information in real time, like a "secure Facebook". UK networks are attacked by other states, criminals and companies seeking secrets, costing billions of pounds.

The National Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (NSI) is an interesting and unusual model for government programs and instructive in the underlying methodology that created it. The NSI program was originally sponsored and started by an investment from the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE), in collaboration with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The National Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding, signed by President Obama in December 2012, defines a vision to guide information sharing and safeguarding within existing law and policy, and to support effective decision-making. One of the strategy’s priority objectives is tied to standards-based acquisition­—in other words, effective partnering between government and industry to create interoperable, standards-based solutions. The government’s ability to integrate systems and share information is stronger when solutions are reused and support multiple missions.

“It would be like trying to clap with one hand.” That is how the man tasked with leading the U.S. government’s effort to share and safeguard information describes the prospect of trying to accomplish that goal without collaboration from the geospatial community. Kshemendra Paul, program manager for the government’s Information Sharing Environment, says that while the government’s role in cybersecurity has been all over the news lately, the ISE is in no way new to the information-safeguarding landscape.

The White House will refurbish existing technology for sharing reports of suspected terrorist activity to carry out a new executive order encouraging the disclosure of cyber threats, U.S. intelligence officials told Nextgov.

In the days since President Barack Obama released his executive order on cybersecurity, active discussion of the measure's moving parts, implementation and potential impact has been unfolding. One area central to the order -- and to federal cybersecurity in general -- is information sharing among government, industry and other stakeholders.

Sharing information is critical for federal homeland security and counterterrorism programs, and as the program manager of the Information Sharing Environment, Kshemendra Paul is responsible for overseeing efforts to provide integrated information for national security operations.

Federal News Radio: The White House's long-awaited, and much anticipated, Executive Order to improve the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure is far from an answer to the lack of congressional action on the issue, and more about doing something to spur change.

Government Executive Magazine: When Hurricane Sandy took aim at the Garden State in October 2012, Gov. Chris Christie crafted what would become a nationally visible leadership response, executed in part from a specially designed information sharing facility in West Trenton, N.J.

SecurityWeek: Cybercriminals are actually sharing information among each other much more effectively than legitimate businesses and governments. For the most part, the “good guys” are operating in their own silos. Sure they are keeping up on the latest attack methods, but often times the information they are obtaining a) is not actionable b) is not timely enough and c) takes substantial human capital to obtain.